Magdi’s conversations with seekers, #2:

Magdi will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a couple of conversations he has had with seekers. Click here to read the first conversation. Here is today’s conversation:

Questioner: I will try to describe what happened to my consciousness this week. I traveled to my origin town. Every night i went out to see the beauty of the desert, where there are palm trees and mountains as well as vast space where there are no houses, only a far space.

Reply: Lovely.

Questioner: In the night i saw a lot of stars with such clarity! They seemed to be bigger than I can ever imagine. So in those moments I see the whole space of consciousness without any thought interfering.

Reply: Yes. That is very beautiful

Questioner: I sense my ignorance! It is as if the whole universe is made of one thing and yet it appears as many different forms. I feel that i know nothing, i do not even know my thoughts. I’m just here, without really knowing what this is all about. Is it normal to feel ignorant this way?

Reply: Yes, That’s OK. Very OK. When the mind becomes innocent, it loses its structures and becomes ‘not-knowing’ and it is in awe in front of the magical fantasy of the universe. Simultaneously, there is presence and wonder. This sort of not knowing is not familiar as the mind is sort of ‘on hold’ and does not like it. There is nothing wrong with you. Enjoy this openness. Become familiar with it. It is the screen out of which the mind appears.

Questioner: it’s so unfamiliar.

Reply: Yes, it is unfamiliar to the mind as the mind is sort of absent. The knowledge of the mind is very limited.

Questioner: It’s like feeling that i do not know anything.

Reply: That is the mind that comes back and wants to grab the attention. The Self needs nothing, it is all knowing. The mind argues with ‘not-knowing’. That is fine. Don’t let it bother you. You know yourself as nothing and as everything. Nothingness is Presence and it is OK. It is out of the nothingness of Presence that everything appears.

Questioner: Yes.

Reply: Consciousness is nothing and everything. Like gold can be a ring or a necklace and it can also be an ingot with no specific shape.

Questioner: Yesss

Reply: The mind gets attached to a ring or a necklace. The mind is stuck in worldly knowledge but not the knowledge of the Self since the knowledge of the Self reveals that the mind is a hologram, a set of images, but not the real deal.

Questioner: We forget that it’s all made up of the same thing Gold?

Reply: Yes

Questioner: There is one other question. I feel that i’m a person searching for some truth ! but at the same time i do not know who is this person searching for that truth! Is the dream character the one searching ?

Reply: The dream character is not real. All the dream characters and all the dream events are not real. Believing that you are a person limits you to a body mind experience. Let go of that belief and allow the me sensation to dissolve in the space and the sense of limitation will dissolve.

Questioner: who is believing that he is a person ?

Reply: The I-thought is the me. The I-thought and the separate self are one. There is no actual separate self. We refer to the I-thought as the separate self impression, since the me-sensation at the body level accompanies the I-thought.

Questioner: Yes, is it me the person that should let go of that belief ?

Reply: The person is not real. The I-thought and the me-belief are the play of consciousness.
Think of it as a play. The separate self is on the stage. The choreographer is consciousness. The one and only reality. The dream character on the stage is not real. It is a role. The play becomes unhappy when you identify with the role the actor is playing. But that is part of the enjoyment in the play. The suspense. But none of that is real. When you dream of a pink elephant, the pink flying elephant in your dream is not real. It is consciousness that dreams all the characters.
yet, when you believe it is real, the dream becomes serious and unhappy.

Questioner: So it is consciousness that hears and see, the person is only like a phantom that we see as real ?

Reply: Yes. The person is like a phantom. Like a mirage It is a play.

Questioner: So, I am actually myself every moment and I dream that there is a person who is doing what he is doing! while actually i’m just the awareness believing i’m a limited body mind?
Reply: Yes. Awareness is not personal. It is One Universal Awareness across the board.

Questioner: So, is what it means to let go of thoughts or contractions ? Is it just a play?

Reply: A contraction is a mind event in the body. A dream event that seems real because the dream character is believed to be real. It is the play of consciousness.

Questioner: And I’m identifying my self with that dream character which is a body mind. There seem to be a feeling of wanting to know the truth in my consciousness and yet no one is responsible for wanting to be free! I keep looking for the seeker and i cannot find it. The person who is talking to you know is it talking by freewill or is there something entirely different?

Reply: There is no free will for the dream character. There is only one reality and that is the reality of consciousness. There is no person.

Questioner: What are the other realities that people imagine ?

Reply: The person … people are an I thought and the realities they imagine are dream realities … as only the reality of Consciousness is real. It is through the reality of Consciousness that everything we know is known.

Questioner: Only a thought?

Reply: Yes, as well as a feeling. People do not think. People are thought of, imagined by the I-thought that Consciousness is dreaming.

Questioner: Ahh! Is everything a thought ?

Reply: Consciousness is the only reality. Things are thought and mind events that are separated out of the fabric. It is the play of Consciousness.

Questioner: This consciousness … what is it made out of ? What is it ?

Reply: The reality of Consciousness is not made out of anything. Yet, all seeming things are made out of it. The substance of consciousness is consciousness and there is no other substance, no other reality. The substance of reality is reality and not something else.

Questioner: What is the relationship between me and consciousness? Even though i don’t know what ‘me’ is really !

Reply: it is the relationship between the dream and the dreamer.

Questioner: Is the dream inside the dreamer?

Reply: The dream is a thought that the dreamer is having. There is no real dream character, no real ‘me’ that can have a relationship with consciousness. Consciousness is its own relationship.

Questioner: So consciousness is a thought i am having ?

Reply: Consciousness is having the thought ‘you’ and is having all thoughts out of itself.

Questioner: What is the relationship of Consciousness with myself ? I’m to who they appear ?
Reply: The relationship between the dream and the dreamer. The dream appears to consciousness. There is no real relationship between the dream character and consciousness. The only real relationship is between consciousness and itself. But that is relatively speaking.

Questioner: And I am Consciousness?

Reply: The only reality. You ARE. Are you not real?

Questioner: yes, I am REAL.

Reply: The reality of consciousness is eternal and does not die.

Questioner: How am i to recognize that?! There is a sense of not seeing that reality.
The dream seems so real! the world and everything seem so real!

Reply: What perceives? That that perceives is real.

Questioner: That which perceive i cannot know.

Reply: You are that. It cannot be know via the mind. But you are it. You are the consciousness that reads these words. You are that reality.

Questioner: Yes, it feels so real because it is here now.

Reply: Turn your attention to the source. That you are. Not perceived. But all perceiving.

Questioner: Yes. I will do that more! Turning my attention to that which perceive and not perceived. What will i find there ?

Reply: That there is only one reality, the reality of consciousness that is not personal.

Questioner: I understand now. Thank you. I will contemplate and turn my attention inward to the source.